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caused his 'little heart problem'. Joel said he'd
gone into rehab, hadn't he, he'd got cured, and then he lay down
and pulled the sheet over his head. It was too light in his room. He
had asked them for dark blinds and preferably dark curtains too, but
they said the ones at his window, pale-blue and translucent, were
the best they could do. He had read in a travel supplement about
a place in the north of Sweden called Kiruna. It was inside the Arctic
Circle and at midsummer when daylight endured all night, the
Ferrum Hotel put up pitch-black blinds at their windows to give
guests a dark night. At midwinter it stayed dark night and day. Joel
liked the thought of Kiruna. It was just the place for him.
    An only child for a long time, he had had an imaginary friend
from the time he was seven until he was ten. The friend was
a boy of his own age he didn't just pretend-talk to or imagine he
was talked back to, he actually saw him. Not as clearly as he saw
his schoolfellows but enough to describe him if someone asked.
No one ever did ask because he told no one, but if he had he
would have said that the friend he called Jasper, because Jasper
called himself that, was fair-haired with blue eyes and had an
expression of great sympathy and understanding.
    No one at school was as nice as Jasper or as good a companion.
Most of them ignored Joel or else mildly bullied him. Until, that
is, he grew too tall for them to dare do too much to him. By that
time Jasper had slowly faded away, the golden hair and blue eyes
losing their colour, the features blurring, until he became a shadow
falling sometimes across a patch of sunlight, then disappearing
altogether. Joel had been saddened by his loss, which was not to
say he was made happy by his return. Lying in his hospital bed,
he closed his eyes and put his hands over them so as not to see
the figure in the chair.
    The real figure in the chair later that day when the bright sunlight
had faded was Ma. She hadn't been to the police. She had gone
to Pembridge Crescent to see where his heart attack had happened,
notably to find the bell in the gatepost her son had fallen against.
When she found what she thought was the right one, she rang the
bell. The people who lived there were 'absolutely charming', couldn't
have been nicer. Of course she had thanked them for saving Joel's
life and they were 'most anxious' to know how he got on.
    Joel asked, emerging, 'How about the money, Ma?'
    'Well, such a funny thing, dear. There was this notice on a lamp
post saying someone had found it. You were quite right about the
amount. That really was clever of you after all you've been through.
I wrote down the number you're to phone. Would you like me to
do that for you?'
    'I'll do it,' said Joel.
    'All right, if you're sure.'
    'I nearly died, you know. They said they nearly lost me.'
    'I know, dear. You told me.' It was plain she didn't believe him.
'I want to talk to you about coming out. You're going to need
someone to look after you for a while. Your father won't have you
in the house. He's very hard but that's the way he is. Well, you
know how he is, he doesn't change. He says he'll pay for a live-in
nurse. Would you like that? I can come over every day of course.'
    'You'll be in deep shit with the old bugger,' said Joel and he
pulled the sheet over his head.
    Once more under the blanket, in the stuffy semi-dark, he was aware
of his mother sighing and at last stealing quietly away. Would his
father have been sorry if he'd died? Joel doubted it. Pa would remember
to his dying day what had happened to Amy. He would never forget
and never forgive. Amy had been as much Ma's child as his and if
Ma hadn't forgotten she had got used to it, she had forgiven him . She
knew he hadn't meant to do what he did, or, rather, left undone. Pa
would never understand that and so he would pay out any amount
of money to keep his son out of his sight for ever.
    * * *
    'I hope you know what you're doing, Gene,' said Ella